Re: Penance/GH macro

Blizzard has been very methodical about not designing a macro that allows you to do what you want here.
There is no way to create a macro that casts spell A, then changes into casting spell B for the next X seconds, then back to spell A again.

But if you can make some compromises, you can get far.

You have the following tools available:

Macro reset countdown:

This is a simple macro that allows you to cast Penance. When you click the button, an internal cooldown begins ticking down for 10 seconds. As long as this timer is ticking, you will cast GHeal. If you do not click the button within 10 seconds, it will reset back into listing penance.

/cast reset=10 Penance, Greater Heal

Problem: The timer reset itself every time you click the macro, even when you cast GHeal. There is no way to time it to the cooldown of penance.

Macro reset countdown with override:

You can get a macro to reset on different things as well. Any of the following are legal.

target/combat/shift/alt/ctrl

/cast reset=10/target/shift Penance, Greater Heal

will for instance reset the macro after 10 seconds, if you press shift or if you change targets. Neither is really what you want. But if you do opt for a timing scheme, adding an override key like shift is a good idea.

Castsequence:

DPSers use sequences. Healers do not. As such, this button is not really useful for a healer. But if hypothetically you are constantly spamming only one button, 4 gheals will time to the 10 second cooldown of penance.

Bah. Not a good deal anyway.
Or you could set up a sequence of the two spells and just hammer it like a cuckoo. At least one of them will work. But suddenly, you are in the wrong part of the chain and penance cooldown expires. You might end up casting gheal anyway. Bzzt.

Just cast both spells in sequence:

/cast Penance
/cast Greater Heal

There will be a lot of warnings when using this macro. But it kind of works, as if the first cast fails, the second cast will succeed, and if the first cast succeeds, the second one fails. At least last time I tried. The "you cannot cast this spell now" messages drove me crazy

Select by mousebutton:
If you press the right mouse button, you cast gheal. If you press the left mouse button, you cast penance.

/cast [button:1] Penance
/cast [button:2] Greater Heal

But healers use hotkeys anyway. Last time I healed with the mouse was at level 4. Bzzt.

Select by modifier:
Pressing this macro casts penance. If you hold shift, you cast GHeal instead.

/cast [nomodifier:shift] Penance
/cast [modifier:shift] Greater Heal

I think this is the best solution available. Two spells in one hotkey, but the shift key modifies it to the alternate version. I use this a lot and it saves me hotkeys.
shift+dispel -> mass dispel.
shift+CoH -> PoH.
shift+SW:P -> devouring plague
shift+smite -> holy fire
etc etc. Spells that technically do the same, but not quite. Of course, you don't want to wear out your shift-pressing finger, so moderation is the key; use this technique for spells you occasionally cast, but not the ones you use often or the ones requiring heavy reflexes. I tried shift+PW:S -> guardian spirit, and it cost me a few tanks before I stopped doing that :P

Get a nine button mouse
Best solution to the hotkey problem. Though even with one and the shift solution, I still don't have all stuff I want to hotkeyed...

Re: Penance/GH macro

If you go for Righteous Fury, then Gheal has a higher TPS than Fheal. But with the new talent that reduces Fheal's mana cost and allowing it to crit more often on targets with less than 50% HP, Fheal shines in mana cost and gets very close to Gheal.

Without Righteous Fury, Fheal is way better.

Though I must admit that I sometimes miss the imba pre-emptive heal casting that was so much needed in vanilla WoW and TBC. In 3.1 this will be pre-emptive shielding the entire raid or something :P.

But I rolled a disc priest because I want to have nice mitigation and loads of smaller bubbles.

Re: Penance/GH macro

Originally Posted by Nesco

If you go for Righteous Fury, then Gheal has a higher TPS than Fheal. But with the new talent that reduces Fheal's mana cost and allowing it to crit more often on targets with less than 50% HP, Fheal shines in mana cost and gets very close to Gheal.

Without Righteous Fury, Fheal is way better.

Though I must admit that I sometimes miss the imba pre-emptive heal casting that was so much needed in vanilla WoW and TBC. In 3.1 this will be pre-emptive shielding the entire raid or something :P.

But I rolled a disc priest because I want to have nice mitigation and loads of smaller bubbles.

IMO righteous fury is a waste of talent points as disc, you can spend the points else where to get inspiration

Re: Penance/GH macro

Adding a "reset=10" to a /castsequence will have the same problems as I listed earlier.
Every time you press the macro, the timer will reset. including when you press the macro to cast GHeal. Or when you press it while already casting. Or when you press it and fail to cast (oom, spell-locked, silenced etc). It's just not reliable.

Adding ! in front of GHeal does nothing. It's intended use it to toggle stuff.
Autoattack, petattack, shadowform and other abilities that can be enabled or disabled. Adding a ! in front of it will ensure it is not disabled if already enabled.

Re: Penance/GH macro

Originally Posted by Danner

Adding a "reset=10" to a /castsequence will have the same problems as I listed earlier.
Every time you press the macro, the timer will reset. including when you press the macro to cast GHeal. Or when you press it while already casting. Or when you press it and fail to cast (oom, spell-locked, silenced etc). It's just not reliable.

Adding ! in front of GHeal does nothing. It's intended use it to toggle stuff.
Autoattack, petattack, shadowform and other abilities that can be enabled or disabled. Adding a ! in front of it will ensure it is not disabled if already enabled.

Im rather sure your wrong on the matter of it reseting the timer every time you use the macro, i havnt experienced that at any time, but id suggest you to atleast try it, should be worth "waisting" around 20secs of your life on

Re: Penance/GH macro

Oh I'm quite sure. Tried to make the same macro the OP wanted a long time ago.
It's just not possible; blizzard covered their bases.

Every time you press the macro button, regardless of which spell is listed (if any), the countdown starts at 10 again. When asked, a blue responded that this was intentional, in a move to avoid you being able to make macro based on cooldowns. They simply wanted to move the responsibility of which spell to cast back to the players.

Re: Penance/GH macro

Flash Heal is your bread and butter filler spell as discipline. Why?

Flash Heal can be cast twice in the time of one Greater Heal.
- That means you have more chance to crit and proc Divine Aegis
- Divine Aegis stacks.
- Divine Aegis gives mana back (although nerfed in 3.1)
- Your priority is preventing damage, let the healadins and CoH top the charts

Flash Heal (glyphed) is more mana efficient for disc than Greater Heal

I don't even have GHeal on my bars or set with clique. If I had planned on being disc when I hit 80, I wouldn't have trained it o.o

Re: Penance/GH macro

Originally Posted by Speakeasy_zj

Flash Heal is your bread and butter filler spell as discipline. Why?

Flash Heal can be cast twice in the time of one Greater Heal.
- That means you have more chance to crit and proc Divine Aegis
- Divine Aegis stacks.
- Divine Aegis gives mana back (although nerfed in 3.1)
- Your priority is preventing damage, let the healadins and CoH top the charts

Flash Heal (glyphed) is more mana efficient for disc than Greater Heal

I don't even have GHeal on my bars or set with clique. If I had planned on being disc when I hit 80, I wouldn't have trained it o.o

And yet a Borrowed Time charge gives more benefit to Greater Heal than it does with Flash. Huh. Go figure.